Tropicana owner Penn National gaming grows revenue, earnings in first quarter

A view of the Tropicana on the Las Vegas Strip, May 5, 2008.

Penn National Gaming, the casino company that owns the Tropicana and operates M Resort, reported its first-quarter earnings today.

Company: Penn National Gaming Inc. (NASDAQ: PENN)

Revenue: $756.5 million, up 13.9 percent from the first quarter of 2015.

Earnings: $23.7 million, compared to net income of $1.9 million one year earlier.

Earnings per share: 26 cents, compared to 2 cents during the same time period in 2015.

What it means: Over the last year, Penn National bought the Tropicana on the Las Vegas Strip, opened its Plainridge Park casino in Massachusetts and acquired Prairie State Gaming, an Illinois slot route operator. Those expansions helped the company’s financial performance this year.

Revenue in Penn National’s east and midwest segment rose 13.2 percent year-over-year to $437.5 million in the first quarter. Revenue from its Southern Plains segment grew 7.1 percent to $225.2 million. And west segment revenue, which includes the Tropicana, increased 40 percent to $87.6 million.

Penn National CEO Timothy Wilmott said in a statement that since buying the Tropicana, his company had updated slot machines on its casino floor, changed the placement of games and “refined the table game mix.” He also touted the recent launch of Sky Beach Day Club and said the company was now concentrated on improving the resort’s food and beverage offerings.

Wilmott said Penn National had introduced its Marquee Rewards program at the Tropicana, allowing it to market the resort to its nearly 3 million regional customers across the country. Over time, he said the company anticipates that to help it “attract new and more profitable customer segments” to the Tropicana. He said the resort should also benefit from improvements to the Las Vegas economy such as the recent debut of the nearby T-Mobile Arena.

Penn National plans to open the $390 million Hollywood Casino Jamul-San Diego in Southern California this summer.

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